"Overwhelming player response" leads Lottery to halt promotion early
By Kate Northrop
One week after it launched, the Mississippi Lottery prematurely halted the Cash 3 promotion that tripled all prize payouts for what was supposed to be the entire month of November.
The Mississippi Lottery abruptly announced the conclusion of the "Cash 3 Times 3" prize enhancement today, Nov. 7, after receiving an "overwhelming player response" to the limited-time promotion.
It was originally slated to run through the entire month of November to celebrate the Lottery's 6th anniversary. The Lottery said it led to record sales, but the popularity of the tripled prize payouts must have been greater than anticipated.
It was so popular, that it drained the funds intended to pay out the prizes during the promotional period one week in.
"The promotion, which began Nov. 1 and was initially planned to run through Nov. 30, has reached the maximum amount of funds allocated for promotional prizes," the Lottery said in a press release.
Players who purchased their Cash 3 tickets from Nov. 1 through Nov. 7 and won prizes will not have to worry about losing out on any unclaimed winnings. Winning bonus promotion tickets purchased through Nov. 7 will be honored, the Lottery clarified.
"The enthusiasm for this promotion has been incredible," Lottery President Jeff Hewitt said in a statement. "Our players really embraced the opportunity to triple their Cash 3 prizes, and participation exceeded expectations. We appreciate everyone who took part in celebrating our sixth anniversary in such a big way."
Mississippi lottery players can expect more promotions and announcements coming soon from the Lottery, the statement concludes.
Cash 3 drawings take place twice a day at 2:30 p.m. CT and 9:30 p.m. CT. All winning numbers, prizes, and odds are published on Lottery Post's Mississippi Lottery Results page right after each drawing.
Yes, it was interesting, wasn't it?
I think they will be hiring a mathematician and/or statistician or two in the near future...
Best wishes to all.
Apparently the Mississippi Lottery doesn't employ anyone that understands a pick 3 game. Especially when syndicates are spending millions in some states to buy every lotto game combination for a guaranteed jackpot with the only risk of splitting it was other winning tickets.
Mississippi players could spend $1000 and get a guaranteed $500 win. Most states have limits on the total amount the will pay out, but doesn't change the win for anyone wagering $1000 before the limit was reached.
Lottery President Jeff Hewitt should be fired for not only offering a promotion that could cost the state millions, but for halting the sales after his big mistake was made known.
Darn, I knew it was too good to be true!
On the bright side, they weren't as stupid as I thought. They actually had a fund set aside for this promotion, because they knew that the rule change would cost the lottery money. It's like an advertising budget.
Well, my first thought reading this article was "what did they think was going to happen?"
Of course people were going to jump on this and the payouts were going to be to the moon....LOL.
"it drained the funds intended to pay out the prizes "
That tells us that they started it with a cap already in place, so they simply reached the cap sooner than they thought.
"Lottery President Jeff Hewitt should be fired for not only offering a promotion that could cost the state millions "
Those "funds intended to pay out the prizes" tells us that they knew the promotion would cost them money, so they obviously thought that the money was worth it to promote the game, or perhaps the lottery as a whole. Their only mistake was failing to realize how many people would get in the game, but that mistake hasn't cost them any money.
It's too bad that we'll probably never know if the sales were because a modest number of people were buying all possible combinations or if a larger number of players were just buying 3, 5 or 10 times as many tickets as they usually buy.
Lottery players aren't as dumb as they thought!
Now if they'll just increase the prize amount for a dollar straight to $700 dollars!
Did they ever disclose a cap when advertising the promotion? I have only read what was on LP so I do not really know.
Or, are they just using the "it drained the funds intended to pay out the prizes" as a cover their assets maneuver?
If there was a cap in place from the beginning I would think the lottery people would be letting all of the disgruntled lottery players know and point out where that fact could be found.
I am not a conspiracy theorist, do not claim lotteries cheat, nor do I promote any of that, but this promotion cancellation has a real stink to it...
Best wishes to all.
For a state that ranks 49th in education, it's not really a surprise.
if they want a real Promotion Copy Missouri or Kentucky everyone pays out $500 for $1 straight Bet but only Missouri and Kentucky pays out $600 for $1 straight bet and this is not even a promotion it is 24/7 🤠 Standard higher payouts than other states for Same $1
Of course they ran out of money for this promotion. If the results I am looking at are correct, they essentially paid out a triple (666) and 345/456 and 5678 combinations those first few draws.
sully16, the army calls that PPPPP, pee poor proper prior planning. 😱
yea that is what I thought happened - the triple probably did them in. Wonder if they could have put in 'triples not included in bonus payout' ???
Has a stink to it. Thousands of people were scrambling trying to get a flight to Mississippi to play this game. You could not possibly not avoid winning 500.00 if you invested 1000.00 into it and spent the time to going around to fill out slips or at a kiosk if you could get one that someone wasn't monopolizing. They had to cancel it or the entire lottery would have gone under.
There website on the Cash 3 page has a red banner at the bottom of screen stating Cash 3 Sales will resume on 11/15. Does that mean no draws for a week?
Yes, they have to reformat the software and their machines and that will take a week. No more 3x prizes though. How could they not have known in advance that everyone in the western world would try to take advantage of getting a free 500.00 for every 1000.00 they wagered.
No, draws are still happening. I would expect they need to draw because some people buy multi-draw tickets, even if sales are currently suspended.
Thanks Todd
Has any other state lottery suspended sales for a game because of too many winners?
Everything about this promotion is weird where a game with a house edge of 50% is flipped so the players have a 50% edge.
An example of this happening before is not coming to mind. Someone didn't think this through. Of course, our members (like you) caught this glitch in the matrix immediately.
"Those "funds intended to pay out the prizes" tells us that they knew the promotion would cost them money "
Those "funds" were apparently only enough for six days and not for the "entire month of November" they advertised.
"There is no specific limit on the number of Mississippi Cash 3 tickets an individual can purchase for a single drawing; players can generally buy as many as they want."
Can't find if there is an aggregate payout limit, but if there is no limit, in another week players that parlay their guaranteed winnings and could cost the lottery much more than they attended to pay out.
"Their only mistake was failing to realize how many people would get in the game, but that mistake hasn't cost them any money."
A few years ago the Kentucky Lottery drew triples three times in one month and paid out the maximum after each drawing. They ended up paying out 97% of all the wagers that month. Don't recall the KY Lottery saying because of an"overwhelming player response" they would stop sales of triples.
I have nothing more I can add to this discussion so I have to two words for y'all ..
1. Liverwurst
2. Oliveloaf
Nuff said .....
Later ..... I have to prepare my post Powerball winning jackpot party.
Anybody have any gherkin pickles and Moxie soda pop to spare ?
Not only did they end the promotion early but, MS lottery has suspended Cash 3 sales until November 15th. This promotion was NOT a success. This was the biggest failure in planning I've seen from a state lottery.
Stack 47, the last paragraph I don't remember.
However go back I believe pre-pandemic. KY lottery had on pick 3/4 you could add a dollar to the play for the one off option. Notice how quickly that went away along with mechanical balls shortly thereafter? Asked one representative about one off and she said it wasn't popular. Was thinking, 'No it was too popular and folks WERE winning'. We won $5K pick 4 and $600 pick 3 all thanks to that extra dollar.
After reading the story about MS's Cash 3 promotion, I thought this decision was made after a great martini lunch...because clearly this wasn't thought all the way thru...
Ms lottery is nothing but a scam. They need to fire the president all the way down to those 3 blind mice that puts on that silly live show
Ms stopped dropping true trips without the fireball basically. It's always been 8 times now it's only 4 times a year . They nothing but a bunch of crooks running place
the people who came up with the promotion were educated in #50.
Chip P posted the "three triples in one month" when he was still working for the KY Lottery.
Remember the "one off" option and believe it lasted until the promotion was over. Unlike in Mississippi where they stopped it when finally figuring out it was a really dumb idea.
Still waiting for a state lottery to offer all the possible pick 3 wagers. IE wager on one digit in position, in any position, two digits in any positions, sums, etc.